Stamp Collecting as a Pastime | Page 9

pledging her
jewels, Columbus in chains, and Columbus describing his third voyage.
Greece has given us a set of stamps illustrating the Olympian Games.
But collectors look with considerable suspicion upon stamps of this
showy class, for too many of them have been produced with the sole
object of making a profit out of their sale to collectors, and not to meet
any postal requirement.
Crude productions of peculiar interest belong more to the earlier stages
of the introduction of postage stamps. Local attempts at engraving in
some of our own early colonial settlements were of the crudest possible
description, and yet they are, because of their very crudeness, far more
interesting than the finished product supplied by firms at home, for the
local effort truly represented the country of its issue in the art of stamp
production. The amusingly crude attempts which the engravers of
Victoria have made from time to time, during the last fifty years, to
give us a passable portrait of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, have no
equal for variety. The stamps of the first South African Republic, made
in Germany, are very appropriate in their roughness of design and
execution. For oddity of appearance the palm must be awarded to those
of Asiatic origin, such, for instance, as the stamps of Afghanistan, of
Kashmir, and most of the local productions of the Native States of
India, marking as they do their own independent attempts to work up to
European methods of intercommunication.
[Illustration:]

[Illustration:]
VIII.

Great Rarities.
Of the many stamps that are set apart, for one cause or another, from
the ordinary run, as having a history of their own, those that by the
common consent of collector and dealer are ranked as great rarities are
the most fruitful source of astonishment to the non-collector. They are
the gems of the most costly collections, the possession of the few, and
the envy of the multitude. In a round dozen that will fetch over £100
apiece there are not more than one or two that can lay any claim to be
considered works of art; indeed, they are mostly distinguished by their
surpassing ugliness. Nevertheless, they are the gems that give tone and
rank to the finest collections. Some of them are even priceless.
To the average man it is astonishing that anyone in his senses can be so
foolish as to give £1,000 for an ugly little picture that has merely done
duty as a postage stamp. He contends there can be no intrinsic value in
such scraps of paper, and that settles the matter, in his opinion. But is it
not so with precious stones and pearls? They are of value merely
because they are the fashion. There is no intrinsic value in them. If they
were not fashionable they would be of little or no value. Long-standing
fashion, and fashion alone, has given them their value. So it is with
stamps; fashion has given them their value, and every decade of
continued popularity adds to that value as it has added to the value of
precious stones and pearls. There is no sign that precious stones are
likely to become worthless by the withdrawal of popular favour.
Fashion changes from one stone to another without affecting the
popularity of precious stones in general. So it is with stamps. Fashions
change from one line of collecting to another without in the slightest
degree affecting the stability or popularity of collecting as a whole.
Precious stones and pearls minister to the pride of the individual, and
stamps to his pleasure; and each has its own strong and unshakable
hold upon the devotees of fashion and pleasure. There is a fluctuating
market in the case of each of these favourites, but I venture to think that
there is, and has been for the past forty years, a steadier rise in the value
of stamps than in the value of precious stones.
[Illustration:]

British Guiana, 1856, 1 c.--In 1856 this colony was awaiting a supply
of stamps from England, and pending its arrival two provisional stamps
were issued, a 1 c. and a 4 c. These were set up from type in the office
of the Official Gazette. A small illustration of a ship, used for heading
the shipping advertisements in the daily papers, was utilised for the
central portion of the design. Of the 1 c. value only one specimen is
known to-day, and that is in the collection of M. Philipp la Renotiérè
(Herr von Ferrary). Doubts have been expressed as to the genuineness
of the copy, but Mr. Bacon, who has had an opportunity of inspecting it,
says: "After a most careful inspection I have no hesitation whatever in
pronouncing it a thoroughly genuine one cent specimen. The copy is a
poor one,